15 Small-Cap Manufacturing Stocks Hedge Funds Are Buying

13. IDEX Corp. (NYSE:IEX)

Market Capitalization as of April 25: $13.07 billion

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 34

IDEX Corp. (NYSE:IEX) manufactures a range of products through three segments: Fluid & Metering Technologies (FMT), Health & Science Technologies (HST), and Fire & Safety/Diversified Products (FSDP). For instance, the company designs, manufactures, and distributes positive displacement pumps, valves, small volume provers, flow meters, injectors, and other fluid-handling pump modules and systems.

The company’s HST segment achieved an 8% organic order growth in Q4 2024, which was the highest among all IDEX segments. For the entirety of 2024, HST reported high single-digit organic order growth, which was driven by year-end blanket orders within the pneumatics and life sciences sectors. A blanket order refers to a long-term agreement with a supplier to purchase some goods/services over a specified period, often at a pre-determined price.

During Q4, IDEX executed several impactful projects within the HST segment, specifically targeting the pharmaceutical, global broadband satellite communications, and energy transition industries. For 2025, IDEX Corp. (NYSE:IEX) projects HST to be its top-performing segment in terms of organic growth and anticipates it to be near the high end of IDEX’s overall growth guidance range of 1% to 3%.

Weitz Large Cap Equity Fund stated the following regarding IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX) in its Q3 2024 investor letter:

“We continued to increase the Fund’s positions in Global Payments and IDEX Corporation (NYSE:IEX). during the quarter. Both stocks trade at significant discounts to our business value estimates. The companies have fundamental catalysts that could drive the stocks, but the timetable may have slipped a bit. The challenge is that investors want results now, especially in a bull market. We have specific milestones to track, and we think their achievement can be measured in quarters rather than years. In our view, the potential payoffs are well worth the wait.”